This small selection of Suttas is by no means comparably small in its importance and significance. For the realization of Dhamma is beyond any descriptive words or concepts: truth is not subject to measurement, comparison or classification. The Buddha and his noble disciples were skilled in the use of words as a means to guide seekers toward the very same realization of Dhamma that they had experienced – to a liberation from all troubles and burdens – but there is not always a need for elaborate explanation of all that one might experience in life. Rather, more meaningful is that which words inspire: the courage to go ‘against the stream’ of the world, and to put aside its mundane values. To move to silent abodes, forests or mountains, where silence and solitude afford the space to uncover hidden weaknesses, and where there may develop an opportunity to examine and understand the phenomena of subjective experience at a most fundamental and universal level. In short, the invitation implicit in these Suttas is to actually do the work which can bear the fruit of liberation.

The book presented here thus contains words which perhaps touch the deep truths of life in a most condensed way. The silent sages of the past were not interested in speculative studies, nor were they concerned with any kind of accumulation, either mental or physical. That was their nature. But they were, perhaps, in their individual ways, appreciative of some few words of the Buddha which they had come to hold in their hearts, and to recite regularly among shady trees, mossy rocks or calming streams – thus bringing the Buddha close to themselves (Cf. Itivuttaka 92).

But this translation does not just honor the old hermits of a distant and forgotten era, when monks used to live close to nature and its dangers. This translation was actually made by just such a sagely hermit of the present age, living in a remote and simple jungle three-walled hut. He is living proof that real striving to be closer to the Dhamma is still a present reality. Moreover, the translator’s skill with the Pali language, perfected to a high scholarly level, has become, after almost five decades of secluded life, even part of his thinking mind. His remarkable linguistic expertise and precision speaks for itself in the pages that follow, confirming his remarkable qualification to translate those ancient words into a modern language. This fact alone makes The Silent Sages of Old of great value, a book that can rightly be treasured.

The Venerable Translator and all other forest monks and friends who have been involved in this project wish to join in the spirit of the Silent Sages and therefore remain anonymous.

PRINTING: If anyone wishes to print the book for free distribution, please feel very welcome to contact us and we would be happy to assist you.

Bhikkhus, there are these four radiances. Which four? The radiance of the moon, the radiance of the sun, the radiance of fire, the radiance of understanding. These, bhikkhus, are the four radiances. This is foremost of these four radiances, that is: the radiance of understanding.

AN 4:144

Dasein is an entity which, in its very being, comports itself understandingly towards that being.

“Observe sensations”, says the meditation teacher. Sensations, he says, are everything that is “felt” in the body—all of those various bodily experiences that are taking place right now: heat, pressure, tingling, itching, throbbing, pain. If one develops the capacity to keep one’s attention on these sensations, he tells us, if one learns to “see them as they really are”, without reacting to them, without any prejudice or preference towards them, then, by practising in this way, “wisdom” (or what he calls paññā) will arise. And so, having been taught in this way, people all over the world sit down cross-legged, close their eyes, and bring their attention to the sensations of the body, believing that they are practising in accordance with the teaching of the Buddha, waiting for insight, for paññā, to arrive. Read the rest of this entry »

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In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition, feeling.

SN 35: 60

In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. But one might also say: “In dependence on eye-consciousness, the eye and forms arise”, because what is being referred to here is the simultaneous presence of, the juxtaposition of rūpa and viññāṇa out there. When there is matter, there must also be consciousness, since without consciousness there can be no experience whatsoever. Thus, matter requires, or is dependent upon, consciousness. But consciousness also requires matter. Since there can be no presence without that which is present, if there is consciousness there must also be that which there is consciousness of. To use Husserl’s terminology, consciousness is characterised by the quality of intentionality—it is a kind of ‘stretching forth’ or ‘being directed at’. When there is consciousness, something is there, something appears in one way or another (as actually present, as past, as possible, etc). This thereness or appearing is such a primitive and general notion that one cannot provide any more detail or explain it in terms of anything else. And since consciousness is nothing but the taking place of appearing—the presence of that which there is consciousness of—any attempt to find it will only lead one to that which there is consciousness of. The idea that one might encounter the presence of something without ipso facto finding that something whose presence it is is utterly inconceivable1. Thus, we can say: “In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness is there and in dependence upon eye-consciousness, the eye and forms are there.” With this, that is. With that, this is. Read the rest of this entry »

Bhikkhus, this is the one-way path for the purification of beings, for passing beyond grief-&-lamentation, for setting down pain-&-displeasure, for the attainment of the method, for the realisation of Nibbāna—that is, the four ways to set up mindfulness.

MN 10

There is only one way to put an end to suffering and that is to attain the method (ñāya) which only the Buddha teaches. And what is this method?

And which is the noble method that he has clearly seen and thoroughly penetrated with wisdom? Here, householder, the noble disciple attends closely and appropriately to dependent origination itself thus: “When this is, this is; when this is not, this is not. When this arises, this arises; when this ceases, this ceases.” That is, with ignorance as condition, determinations; with determinations as condition, consciousness… Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. But with the complete fading away and cessation of that very ignorance, cessation of determinations; with the cessation of determinations, cessation of consciousness… Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.

SN 12: 41

Only when mindfulness is set up in a way that allows one to see and penetrate paṭiccasamuppāda can it be said to be sammāsati, rather than micchāsati. This means that one must set up mindfulness not by focusing on a single object of meditation (as most people seem to believe) but in a way that allows one to attend to the simultaneous presence of two mutually dependent things (“When this is, this is”). Indeed, if one makes the effort to contemplate the nature of experience, one finds that the possibility of an experience of just one thing is inconceivable, and that there must be, at the very least, two things. As Merleau-Ponty showed, the idea that perception is built up out of single homogeneous “sensations” or “impressions” is mistaken. Any perception always involves two things: a figure on a background. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Pali word “samādhi” is usually translated as “concentration”. This is well and good—for as long as one knows what one is designating by this word “concentration”. The trouble is that the word “concentration” usually implies a kind of focusing or narrowing of attention on to a fixed object. This is not what samādhi is. The word “samādhi” comes from saŋ (meaning “together”) + dhā or dahati (meaning “to put; to place”). This is because samādhi means something like putting together, unifying, bringing together as one. The English word “composure” captures this meaning rather effectively since it resembles the Pali by being constituted by the Latin prefix com (meaning “together”) and the verb ponere (meaning “to put; to place”), whose past participle is positus. Samādhi involves composing the mind, bringing the mind together into one place such that one discerns the mind as one thing, as a phenomenon. Read the rest of this entry »

Venerable sir, it is said ‘the world, the world.’ In what way, venerable sir, is it said ‘the world’?

SN 35:82

Normally, when people think of “the world” they are referring to everything, every thing. But what is this if not the totality of all things that are to be found within the world? If, however, one takes the trouble to consider this idea, it should not be long before one notices that it is deeply problematic, since it presupposes a world within which things can be found so that one can then add them together to get to this world, which one has already presupposed.

Martin Heidegger offered a radically different conception of the world. In Being and Time, he introduced the idea that the world is not another thing within-the-world, but is that because of which things are discovered. Read the rest of this entry »

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Speech for the Opening of a Monument in Bundala, Sri Lanka, Friday 26th February 2016, by Michael Rae (Path Press Board Member)

– Ven Nanavira was nothing if not a very serious person. He came to Ceylon with Ven Nanamoli to attempt to achieve just one thing – the enlightenment that the Buddha talked about. This was not common or socially acceptable so soon after the end of World War Two – but as Nanavira writes in L 50 “ for me the Dhamma is real, and it is the only thing that I take seriously: if I cannot practise the Dhamma as I wish, I have no further desire to live.” Nanavira later removed himself from contact with other monks and the support of a monastery by moving to a single room kuti (hut) in the hot coastal plains in the south of the country. There he was free of distractions and could spend his days in meditation, or reading and writing. He seemed to prefer his own company. Read the rest of this entry »

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